Couple’s savvy property move to buck ‘terrible’ inheritance trend diving Australia: ‘Doesn’t feel right’

Sunshine Coast couple Brittany and Cody Roberts have purchased three properties without the help of the Bank of Mum and Dad and aren’t expecting an inheritance. (Source: Supplied)

Half of young Australian workers now believe what you inherit from your family is more important than how hard you work. While some young Aussies have been able to successfully get ahead without the help of mum and dad, an economist has warned the looming $5.4 trillion inheritance transfer is set to create a bigger division between the haves and the have-nots.

More than half of Gen Z’s (55 per cent) and nearly half of Millennials (49 per cent) think what you inherit is now more important than how hard you work when trying to get ahead in this country. The new research was based on a survey of more than 2,000 people by investing platform Stake.

Think Forward economist Thomas Walker told Yahoo Finance this sentiment was growing among young people, particularly when it came to getting on the property ladder.

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“This story that you go to university or TAFE, you get an education, you have a good job, you earn income, which then allows you to buy a home and start a family and live a secure life, that’s kind of breaking down unless you’ve got the right parents,” he said.

“It’s definitely happening. It’s definitely worrying if 50 per cent of people now see that they have to wait for their parents to pass away to get some money as the way to achieve financial security. That’s not good for our society.”

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Stake CEO Matt Leibowitz said today’s economy meant goalposts for young people were “always shifting”.

“Plans that worked in the past may fail today, and people are rightly questioning how to get ahead when the old rules no longer apply,” he said.

Leibowitz said younger people who are actively investing have a more optimistic outlook, with Stake’s research finding investors who don’t yet own a home were nearly twice as likely as non-investors to feel they could afford one without an inheritance.

Sunshine Coast couple Brittany and Cody Roberts have three properties worth $3.7 million and were able to do it without the help of the Bank of Mum and Dad.

The couple, aged 28 and 35, said investing, buying at a good time and utilising government grants had helped them get ahead financially.

Cody told Yahoo Finance the couple scraped together $35,000 to buy their first property, a $505,000 terrace, at the end of 2020. They used a 5 per cent deposit and first-home owner grants and stamp duty exemptions, so they could buy with the “bare bones”.

“Our savings process was using, at that time, a micro investing app and dollar-cost averaging into index funds as our way to make it a little less liquid, a little bit harder to access,” Cody, who works as a sales manager for a home builder, said.

Brittany and Cody Roberts (left) bought their first property in 2020 with a 5 per cent deposit and used investments to help do it. Stake CEO Matt Leibowitz (right) believes the old rules no longer applied when it came to getting ahead. (Source: Supplied)

The couple purchased their second home, a house and land package for $570,000, after “18 months of hard saving”. They also released the equity in their first home.

They moved into this home in 2023, turning their first home into an investment property. In mid-2024 they purchased their third property, a duplex for $770,000, again using savings and equity.

Brittany, who runs her own marketing agency, said the couple were not expecting to receive an inheritance from their parents. She said they had been “surprised” by how much they had been able to achieve.

“That only made us want to work harder in a way, to continue to progress with that,” she told Yahoo Finance.

Cody acknowledged it had become harder for young people to get ahead if they didn’t have some kind of leg up. “But that doesn’t mean it’s out of reach,” he added.

Finder research earlier this year found 41 per cent of Aussies were expecting an inheritance. Of those 19 per cent said it would “significantly” improve their financial situation, while 10 per cent said they were relying on it for major goals like a house deposit.

Separate data from the Australian Housing Monitor found nearly two-thirds of Aussies thought the only way they would ever be able to buy a home was if they received a large inheritance.

As it happens, Think Forward economist Thomas Walker and his partner both worked full-time jobs with good incomes, but they were only able to purchase their first home, an apartment in Melbourne, because of an inheritance.

“I got an inheritance in 2022 because I lost my mum and my parents were divorced, so her super didn’t go to my dad. It was split three ways with me and my two siblings,” he said.

Think Forward CEO Thomas Walker bought his home after receiving an inheritance from his mother and believes Australia should introduce an inheritance tax. (Source: Think Forward/AAP)

This gave him enough money for a home deposit and allowed him to resign from his well-paying job to pursue something he was passionate about.

“I was able to get into home ownership and do something I love because this awful thing happened to me. If that hadn’t happened, I would still be renting and really stressed about my financial situation,” he said.

Walker said this can feel “incredibly unfair”, especially when he sees many of his friends are yet to get onto the property ladder.

“I’d obviously rather be where they are because they have both their parents. It doesn’t feel right that work isn’t enough any more,” he said.

Parliamentary Library analysis released by the Greens last year found it would take a primary school teacher 12 years to save up a 20 per cent deposit.

A child care worker would need a whopping 31 years, while a registered nurse would need 11 years, based on projected house prices and earnings.

The Productivity Commission previously estimated that $3.5 trillion would be passed on from Aussies aged 60 and over by 2050. More recent JBWere figures put the figure at $5.4 trillion over the next 20 years.

“There is this gigantic amount of wealth, which is held by the Baby Boomers, which is going to be passed on over the next 10, 20 years, which is just going to divide younger generations between those who got a big inheritance and those that didn’t,” Walker said.

“I think people are really clocking onto that over the last couple of years.”

Think Forward has been advocating for an inheritance tax, with 73 per cent of young people it surveyed backing the idea for estates worth more than $1 million.

“We need to change the tax system so it stops rewarding wealth holders over workers, like the capital gains tax discount, negative gearing,” he said.

“But there is so much wealth stored in the Boomer generation and in property that there is going to be these really big inequality impacts that we need to think about taxing that money when it’s passed on.”

Walker said using the funds raised to collectively invest in things younger generations need, such as making university and TAFE cheaper or building more affordable housing, could be the key.

“I think we have to get there. Otherwise, we’re going to have really terrible outcomes. It’s going to tear at our social fabric,” he said.

“We can’t have a society built on who your parents are. That’s just not going to work.”

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